The 543 Union Street Site is located in the borough of Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. The Site has a 19th century four story masonry building located on an approximately 8,000 square feet parcel at the northwest corner of Union and Nevis Street in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn. The building on the site is a condominium under a cooperative business ownership and has approximately 22 spaces occupied by business owners/tenants including a pottery maker, artists, sculptures, recording/news studio and other similar small businesses.
As part of the Brownfields Cleanup Program, NYSDEC is
overseeing the work including installation of a soil vapor mitigation system, to
remediate the 473 President Street Site located south of 543 Union Street Site.
NYSDEC and NYSDOH expanded their sampling investigation in the neighborhood and
began collecting indoor air samples to evaluate whether chlorinated solvent TCE
related to the 473 President Street site migrated to impact the indoor air of
the neighboring buildings through vapor intrusion. NYSDEC and NYSDOH were
collecting Indoor air samples from the basement and inside the business units
in 543 Union Street building beginning early February 2023. The indoor air sampling
efforts revealed contamination of the indoor air with TCE vapor above the
NYSDOH standard placing the building occupant at an increased risk of having
adverse health effect. NYSDEC implemented interim mitigation measures to reduce
the health risk including installing stand-alone air purifying units at each
occupied units and a temporary vapor extraction system to vent out contaminated
air from the basement. However, these interim mitigation measures were
partially successful. On August 16, 2023, NYSDEC and NYSDOH requested EPA’s
assistance to:
- enhance their partially successful interim mitigation measures before the onset of 2023/2024 heating season; and
- provide support during the review
and implementation of the design for the permanent vapor intrusion mitigation
system.
